Myths of Choice

Laetitia

When Laetitia died, she didn’t expect to wake up again.

The air flowing through her lungs was foreign and heavy. Breathing was hard when you haven’t done it in a while, she realized. It forced an impossible reality down her throat: she was definitely alive.

What happened to her? She tried to remember. The last thing she ever saw was the face of the man she was painstakingly in love with.

Haedes Wargreaves.

He didn’t even flinch when her head was severed from her body. As she had predicted when she died, the cold stare he gave her way was still etched into her heart. It would haunt her until the end of time.

At her execution, she could see Haedes did not stand alone. At the foot of the gallows, he was side by side with the woman he loved. The very woman she had tried to kill.

Tereva Agnesbury.

She squeezed her eyes shut with such force, as if she could wring the memory out by physical attempt. Perhaps, this was a hallucination, a purgatorial delusion. Maybe she was still in Karypso’s dream, she hoped. The Goddess of Time and Oblivion was meant to cleanse her soul and wash away her memories before she could live another life. She could not have been reborn if ghosts of her past were clinging to her soul. There was no way she could be alive if her memories weren’t erased.

But the air still stung her lungs. If it wasn’t for the wretched feeling, she could have lived an entire lifetime inside that hope.

She attempted to open her eyes, but the light, even filtered through her long eyelashes, was still too much to bear. She raised a trembling hand to her lips. They felt dry and coarse. The same sandpaper texture she endured the day she died.

Finally, with a stiff and wooden effort, she sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. Slowly, she watched as the room around her coalesced. It was awfully familiar.

A large, wooden-framed window, left slightly ajar, gave away the smell of salt and sunshine. From beneath the bedchamber, the rhythmic, crashing sound of the waves against the rocks on the shore created a soundscape she was intimately acquainted with. There were frescoes on the wall; lively and intricate pictures of the natural world around her, brushwork she had loved since childhood. She touched the mattress. A comfortable and cozy array of feathers underneath a four-poster structure of carved oak and gold, so high that a small wooden step was needed to climb into it.

Everything showed she was home, inside the coastal castle her father had built for her.

She furrowed her brows. She knew she was home, but when?

If she had come back to life, just how long before she died? Or how long since?

Looking for hints, she slid off the bed and wandered through the room, as if it were a museum. The polished surface of her bronze mirror and the faint smell of perfume oils coming from the alabaster jars seemed to belong to someone else now. However, it was hard to find any clues since she hadn’t changed anything ever since she was a child. She had never been one for change, and her room was an oath to that.

She entered the balcony. The azure sea jabbed at her eyes with its splendour.

She pivoted, taking in the broader scenery of the castle’s grounds and distant coastline.

Then, she halted.

In the corner of the balcony, brushes and ink were scattered around a canvas.

It showed an unfinished picture that made her heart drop to her feet.

A man with pale violet eyes just like hers. Smiling kindly at the child beside him.

Her dad.

Laetitia felt tears smother her sight. Inside her chest, a feeling grew so ponderous and unnerving that she wanted to rip her heart out.

Hope.

In a split second, she ran outside her room, still wearing her sleep garments and completely dishevelled. She rushed through the solar and the corridors like she was in the Olympic Games. Her heart was beating so fast, she thought she would die.

Panting and coughing, she arrived at her father’s office doors. She gulped down air and swallowed hard, spelling a little prayer before entering. Please, please, please, if any of the three goddesses are listening, let my father be alive. I beg of you. Let me share his warmth at least once more.

She opened the doors carefully.

The handle had the same coldness as her insides. The hinges screamed, as if they were also terrified to find out what was behind. The prayer never left her lips. Laetitia was willing to give both her eyes to whatever Goddess granted her wishes.

The gap between herself and her utmost fear slowly widened.

There was a golden-haired man standing behind a luxurious wooden desk.

She was frozen on the spot.

The air was permeated with the aroma of burnt olive oil. He had surely spent the night at this place, fixing up papers and organizing state matters. His fingers flew through the documents, and his gaze was lost in thought.

Laetitia’s legs didn’t crumble beneath her only by sheer willpower.

The sight of her father, alive and breathing, brought tears to her eyes again. She dashed towards him.

When he looked up, eyes gentle and loving, he smiled.

“Laetitia, darling,” he said.

She hugged him tightly.

“I have missed you so much!” she cried, the words raw and ragged, ripped from her soul.

His hands, strong and comforting, cradled her back.

“Is everything okay, my daughter?” a worried voice spoke to her.

She sobbed. She could die happy, now. She pulled back slightly, forcing a watery smile on her face and looking closely at him. “Now, it is.”

Count Lloyd Burnwick loved his daughter dearly, with an affection far too uncommon for the transactional nature of familiar relationships for aristocrats. In return, Laetitia loved him dearly, too.

Count Burnwick narrowed his eyes. He looked past his weeping daughter and turned to the other figure in the room: Ravi.

“What happened, Ravi?” he asked, anger simmering in a dangerously soft voice. “Who did this?”

Ravi was the closest friend of Laetitia, who was standing in the corner of the room, a dark, silent shadow, completely unnoticed by her until that very moment. A half-blood slave whom she had saved years ago and who demonstrated a level of loyalty even parents seldom displayed to their children.

Laetitia turned around to see the person she had ignored the moment she barged into the room.

Ravi.

He was smaller than she had remembered and was using the insignia of an Augustus, the second lowest insignia in the military, above only the common soldier, the Brutus. The last time she saw him, he was a Primus, the highest achievable position for a commoner. So, Ravi hasn’t yet climbed his ranks, she observed in her haze. He was staring at her, utterly worried.

He shifted his gaze towards her father.

“I don’t know, my Lord,” he said, brows furrowing at an attempt to understand her erratic behaviour.

She let her father go and went straight to him, with a sudden, direct purpose. The gaze she held made him almost stumble. It was like she couldn’t be dragged out by an army.

“Are you okay, my La–” Laetitia launched herself to hug him.

“I am so grateful for being able to see you two once more!” she squealed.

Ravi was a tanned man, but the redness on his cheeks was noticeable even to a blind man. The muscles in his entire body, which were far from few, contracted and tensed up. Even the dog-like ears—a heritage of his demonic blood, which he had been so careful not to show—were now visible. As usual, Laetitia didn’t notice it and kept her arms locked around him.

But soon, the euphoria turned into sorrow. With her arms still wrapped around Ravi, she started crying and laughing at the same time. She couldn’t stop herself from rumbling apologies and begging for forgiveness at the same time she kissed his cheeks. If she could look at herself, she would be able to tell she was completely unhinged.

Laetitia only stopped acting insane when her father clasped her face into both his hands and told her, “Breathe”.

The look on his face, something between preoccupation and tolerance, made her comply. She tried taking deep breaths, and the sobbing eventually subsided. She still felt like something inside her had shattered. The way a sinner feels when praying for the first time.

Her father’s hands didn’t falter. Up until the very moment she stopped bawling her eyes out, he held her like she was still his little baby.

“Ticia, darling, go back to your room,” he said, delicately. “Ravi will take you.”

He gestured toward Ravi with a motion of his head. Ravi silently complied. Laetitia only nodded, afraid that if she said anything else out loud, the crying would resume—this time, even uglier.

“Follow me, my Lady.” Ravi raised his arm so that she could take it.

Laetitia, guided out of the office, finally attained a measure of composure, her thoughts becoming more and more clear by the second. But as Ravi led her down the hall, a sliver of her father’s command followed her: “Call for the doctor.”